Saturday, August 1, 2015

Admit it. You’ve done this: someone starts to tell you a
joke, and you stop them by either saying, “I’ve heard that one already” or
*gasp* telling them the punchline
before they can get to it. After all, if you’ve already heard the joke, why
waste the time in letting them tell it? Right?

Maybe you are the person telling the joke. How do you feel
when someone cuts you off before you can get to the end? If you are like me, it’s
not the most pleasant of experiences.

It may not even be a joke—it could possibly be a story, or
you could be telling about an experience you had. Personally, I get a little
frustrated when someone jumps to the end, or at least what they think will be
the end.

I’ve thought about why I get frustrated in situations like
that. And then it occurred to me: there is joy in the act of telling the story—at least to storytellers.

My first book, The
Hidden Sun, has an ending which many reviewers have stated as being predictable.
I’ll admit it, it is. It has a happy ending. The good guys win. The bad guys
lose. Predictable, right? Well, not really. You see, I knew the other option of
having the bad guys win would not go over well. I needed to do something else.

What was my solution? Yes, the good guys win, but it is how they do it which makes the story
interesting. (The reviewers who call the ending predictable also state they did
enjoy the twists and turns which led to the happy ending.)

When writing a book, the most enjoyable time for me is
during the primary draft—when the story is first being told. Often, the story
takes unexpected twists that I, as the author, didn’t see coming. It’s pretty
cool when that happens. In fact, it is probably the single biggest reason I
continue to write—because I enjoy telling the story.

Granted, it’s also pretty cool when someone reads the story
and enjoys it.

Next time someone starts to tell a joke or a story you think
you’ve heard, let them finish. You may be delightfully surprised—not at the
ending, but rather how happy the storyteller looks at the end.